


pump your veins with gushing gold

by jeannedarc



Category: SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Exhibitionism, Fight Club - Freeform, Fist Fights, M/M, Public Sex, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-12 22:50:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21484135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannedarc/pseuds/jeannedarc
Summary: Jongin, for one, just wants to be happy, to fill the endless void inside himself, made greater by pushing pencils, by creating spreadsheets, by having one and a half friends entirely. Ten, for another, just wants not to care.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 10
Kudos: 51





	pump your veins with gushing gold

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! ♥  
this is the first of my commissioned fics, and i hope to have a couple more out in the next couple days.  
this is for kas, who really just said "kai/ten fight club au" and let me go Fuckin Hog. bless u kas.  
also thanks to maddie for betaing on the fly!! i appreciate ur effort to Keep Me In Line.  
as always please be mindful of the tags! read safe! love you!

The window that lines the back wall of his pathetic cubicle maze has never looked so appealing, realises Jongin one day, in a fit of hand-wringing that comes between organising this spreadsheet and that one. He hates workbooks almost as much as he hates his job in its entirety, which he knows is quite a bit. His phone, sat a few feet away from him on his absolute mess of a desk, rings. He does not answer, instead loosens the knot on his tie only to tighten it back up again, lets it go to voicemail. It's probably Baekhyun down in accounting. He hates Baekhyun down in accounting more than he hates this nightmare job, not that he can say as much, either to Baekhyun or to himself.

Kim Jongin stares out the window, and thinks about what it all _means_, and prays that the clock sitting over the cubicles finds him a miracle. Even if it's just a little one.

He doesn't know how to explain it, to anyone, but he's not been happy in so long that it feels almost as if happiness is an illusion, something crystalline, reachng to him and taunting him with its fingertips but never quite making contact. He wants to break its beautiful, frigid face, collect all the prizes inside.

Not that he can. Not that he knows how.

His therapist -- the one expense he spares himself, the price of working a pencil-pushing job in the modern age so that he _stops_ thinking about the window quite so much -- always tells him that he has to make happiness for himself, that he's got to do something for himself in order to get better. She stares at him for long periods of time, over the rim of her horned glasses, looking like something vintage and nightmarish. He knows she's judging him, just like the half-dozen before her have, just like the last one, ugly and stout, had blamed his problems on the generation in which he'd been born. As if he could help that. Jongin'd been forced to laugh. But still, they judge. Someone beautiful, someone stable and established, should have no trouble being happy.

It simply eludes him. He has never once known why.

He doesn't even understand what the big rush is to get out of work; he'll only do the same thing he always does: go home, read books until sleep takes him, forget to eat until 2am, his broken sleep pattern a sure contributor although not the sole one. His dogs will curl up around him, make him warm. They're his true concession, the thing to which he most looks forward at the end of a long day. Perhaps that makes him a homebody. But then, doesn't a homebody need a home?

His concrete box has never been his favourite, and it doesn't feel like much of anything to Jongin.

That's okay, he tells himself every year, when the lease renewal is up and he doesn't have an excuse not to stay. It's a nice concrete box, and he gets to leave it with his hands in front of his back instead of behind it. His chin, proud, raises just a fraction every time. Another winter passes. Another birthday. Another friendless day.

He is unhappy. He wonders what his mother might think, what his siblings would do at his funeral, whether or not his best friend would even bother showing up.

That's the worst part about wanting to die: that it's harder to actually _do_ if you care what the people you leave behind are going to do to desecrate your corpse and your memory once you're gone.

On the screen in front of him a cursor blinks, impatiently reminding him that he has to insert a formula before one will pop up, work its magic on the numbers with which he's been provided. He hurriedly taps a series of buttons. His work on this sheet is finished. He saves, attaches it to a blank email meant for his boss. He doesn't know what to say to that man, despite having worked under him for the better part of the last five years. He wonders, tongue bitten but tucked behind his front teeth, what a more satisfied or, better yet, satisfactory person might have to say to their direct supervisor, if it's some horrifying shortcoming of his own or if people who aren't like him, who've smiled and meant it in the last twenty-seven years of their lives, are simply better at conversation.

Nature versus nurture. Jongin's not good at nurturing himself, knows his nature isn't the best, knows he could be better at so many things if only he'd _apply_ himself. He's losing on both fronts.

His email pings. His supervisor must not have been doing so much. Attached is an invitation to a get-together, after-hours, adult employees only. _Team building_, they always call it. _Fucking torture_ seems more apt. He has about one and a half friends here, and one and a half out in the world, and he likes it that way. At least his source of distress isn't from being undersocialised. He comforts himself in that.

Still, the idea of a know-nothing, say-nothing bar, even if it does find him surrounded by people he'll have to see again Monday morning, appeals to him. His therapist's stern advice remains with him, a ticking time bomb, settled in cosy between his ribs, somewhere over his heart.

He glances at the clock again. It's nearly time to leave, anyway. He collects his jacket, leaves his lunchbox to whatever fate may befall it, sure whatever's left in there -- he hasn't taken a lunch in two and a half years -- will be moldy by the time he returns to it again. He tucks himself into the smart sports coat an ex had helped him buy, her tiny hands unsatisfying but her grip something to write home about.

He'll go to the bar. He'll have one drink. He'll be home by seven. The dogs will wait up for him that late.

Out into the mid-winter chill he goes, his overcoat wrapped around him, making that awful plasticine sound that all the designers are into these days. He wonders, briefly, whether or not noise is a fashion statement. The thought of finding someone to take home tonight is an even quicker flash. Still, being foolish, Kim Jongin hopes that at least one good thing comes out of this stupid outing.

The bus nearly runs him over when it stops curbside to pick him up. He thinks about next time, about not missing, about taking that extra step into the sloshing slush, and how the glow of the headlights before him will look like angels come to take him home.

///

It's nine at night by the time Jongin finally finds a comfort zone, perched at the bar. Here he is, all lit up in red, hair falling from its careful sweep, melting into something soft and touchable after a full fourteen hours' worth of good service. He keeps pushing it off his forehead, and that seems to get peoples' attention more than he'd like.

Baekhyun from accounting, it should be noted, is there, but he'd gone home to his husband quite some time ago. Must be nice, having someone to go home to, thinks Jongin with a wrinkle of his nose. He swirls the astringent scotch in the bottom of his glass, and wonders what about him makes people think he's into that. He really wishes he had a choice in what people give him to drink, or that he could somehow intercept these orders altogether. He thinks of flagging down the bartender, asking to put his reception mode to _do not disturb_, but the poor girl's so busy, and so short that she has to have the barback pluck the bottles from the top shelf, and he wouldn't be able to catch her attention even if he tried.

So he nurses his drink. It tastes like shit.

In the corner of the bar are his coworkers, who've done a splendid job of ignoring him after he'd excused himself to the restroom an hour prior and never sat back with them. Good. It's what he wants -- no, deserves. He deserves to be doing this at home in the privacy of his own living-room-turned-bedroom. He hasn't afforded himself an opportunity so luxurious in such a long time. Still, he hears their raucous laughter, and doesn't know what to do with the last remaining frays of his nerves.

He orders a beer when the scotch is too much. It's a blatant violation of his own personal rules, of too many frat parties gone horribly wrong simply by downgrading from fancy to cheap, but he really just wants to stop being looked at like he's something out of place.

In the middle of the red-lit room, there are pool tables, a dusty jukebox that's probably seen better days but worse collections. Someone must insert a bill into the neon frame, because it kicks to life, plays some indie shit he's never heard of, slow and seductive. At least it's not the Eagles or something equally as heartbroken, or Jongin might have to reconsider stepping in front of a bus a second time tonight.

Looking back, Kim Jongin would not say that he'd had a ton of life-changing moments, but this is one for the books. He turns in his swivelling barstool, and lays eyes on this delicate, incredible creature. Perfect nose, probably bought by parents who've never let him know struggle. A thin sliver of hip that peeks out when the man raises his arms over his head, swaying to the music lopsidedly as he grips a pool cue with the other.

When he opens his eyes, just a crack, just enough to make sure he's being watched, he's looking straight at Jongin, who visibly waffles, turning back to the bar, hastily downing and summarily choking on his beer. He's got to get out of here.

When, at last, he makes it home, the cold at his back and his kids at his feet, he collapses into bed, his books forgotten, his routine disrupted. And in the morning, when he wakes, hard and pressing into the pillow he keeps tucked between his knees for comfort, he tries to imagine a name that might go with someone so sidereal who'd chosen to fall to earth.

///

The weekend means, mainly, that Jongin doesn't leave the house. He spends time with the kids. He facetimes his best friend, living overseas, working in a dance company that's quickly becoming a household name. Jongin pretends that he doesn't watch the shape of his best friend's mouth, same as he's done for years on end, but at least this time it's a more earnest effort than any one he's made before.

"You always look so bored, Jonginnie," singsongs Taemin, the sound of his voice something static through the bad connection. "When was the last time you went out?" It's the same conversation they've had a thousand times, and Jongin wants to think Taemin has good intentions, though he's probably just ready to mock, merciless in his ministrations.

At least this time the conversation changes. "Yesterday." Taemin visibly perks, his features on the screen something brighter. Jongin would never say it to his best friend, but that's his sunshine. "Went to a bar after work."

"Oh? Did you meet anyone?" Taemin grins, wicked, tongue clacking loudly behind his teeth. "You did! Did you hook up with them?"

Jongin scoffs, rolling his eyes at the notion of doing something so obscene to such a gorgeous person -- no, his glass animal, tied up to his dreams and his libido deserves wining, dining, romance, all the things Jongin's never been able to give anyone. "No. But I did meet them. Sort of." He tries not to shrivel at the idea that he could take someone home and just...fuck them. "Not everyone is like you, you know."

"Are you calling me a slut?"

"You and I both know you're a slut."

Taemin hums, snickers under his breath, his smile too bright to hide even behind a pixellated approximation of what he really looks like. "Yeah, you're right. It's a good thing those ways of mine haven't rubbed off on you, Jonginnie. Who knows where we'd be if they had?" And that teasing edge is back again. "I love you, you know that? But I want you to do more things that make you happy."

For the record, Jongin doesn't know whether it's appropriate to burst into tears. He does it anyway, and the trail of them, dripping past his bottom lip, tastes astringent. He thinks of the bar, and of drinking until the tears don't come anymore, and tells Taemin, "I have to go."

"What? Where are you going?"

"Back to the bar." The concrete walls have started to rattle with the domestic next door. Jongin figures even the bugs, wherever they hide in this solid block of a building, are afraid to lose their footing, when it gets like this. "Call me after your rehearsal? If you feel like it, I mean. I'll miss you til then." And he offers a little smile, placation for the mass of friends he doesn't have, and ends the call.

///

Back in the red-lit bar, no one buys him drinks tonight. Good. It's how he wants this to go. He's really just proving something to himself, though the terms of it aren't necessarily clear to him. He waits, he watches the door, and the bartender -- different, now, than the girl who'd worked last night, a decidedly short man with awful pretty features for someone meant to be human, all carved from driftwood like an ancient but fantastical art piece -- must take pity on him.

"Waiting for someone?" he asks over the din of conversation, a bit louder than he needs to. God bless the local hole in the wall. "Waiting for him?"

"Him?" Jongin blinks the whiskey from his eyes, ignoring how it'd tasted worse sober than it does now.

"Him," confirms the bartender solemnly, lips drawing into a thin line.

Must be his figurine's got a reputation, around here. It'd make sense. He doesn't really fit in some dirty dive. The bartender pours him a shot, offers it to him. "On the house, for being the new victim. He's a weird fucker. Watch yourself, if you think you're going to get anywhere."

Jongin doesn't know what this means, and wonders when direct communication fell out of fashion, and downs the shot anyway.

It's when he's three more down, all hazy and slipping from his stool, that the porcelain doll of his dreams finally saunters in, hickeyed up and a human portrayal of what sex feels like. He must be cold, thinks Jongin, because the bastard's only wearing a thin tank top, that same sliver of skin exposed but constantly now. It's perfect over those zippered jeans. He looks delicious, devourable, something that could make Jongin stop feeling that ache in his chest, and he's working up his nerve when his angel takes a seat beside him.

"You were here last night," he says, by way of greeting, and his voice is something high but silken, soft despite the gentle roar surrounding them. "It's nice to see you again." As if this couldn't possibly be better than it'd been in the dream from which Jongin had awakened this morning. "What's your name?"

Jongin stammers over the syllables but finally gets it out. Ten goes to say something but Jongin interrupts. "I...don't tell me, not yet."

"Why," and the kitten, beautiful and real and liquored up with his breath in Jongin's face, "you been thinking about me?"

He doesn't know how to admit it, but by the looks of it he doesn't have to.

"I'm Ten. Please call me Ten," amends the plaything, all shadowed when he lowers his voice even further. "And please let me buy you a drink, since apparently I've interrupted your sleep schedule."

Jongin lets it happen, orders a beer, which Ten meets with glee. "I like you already. Simple. Good for my wallet. Let me ask you something: why did you notice me?"

In the morning, after an hour of furiously fingering himself in the hopes that something, anything would make him feel as full as Ten's eyes had the night prior, looked up the song, the liquid lyrics passing through him as he listened to it again, again, again. He still has the evidence of drunkenly trying to remember a time signature open on his phone's browser. One time had been too many, and now he can't seem to get enough, though whether that applies to Ten, or to the song, or some wicked combination of the two, he can't decide.

The beer goes quickly while he tries to formulate an answer that makes sense. "You have good taste in music," he finally says, and then winces at how unconvincing it is. He thinks of his own cock, purpled and trapped between his own nimble fingers, and tries to earn himself another one of those looks. Just one, then he'll be satisfied. "And you looked really good dancing."

"Ah, is that it," says Ten, the tone of his voice nothing short of omniscient and omnipresent. "You want to fuck?"

"No," says Jongin, immediately, the tips of his ears and the column of his throat going red in sweeping succession so succinct it sweeps his mind out from under his words. "I want..." And what does he want? What is the one thing for which his soul, barren and broken, most yearns? "I want to be happy. And you look like you are. That's all."

"Oh, that's not so hard." Ten pulls back, bats his eyes a couple times, toys with one of several glinting studs that litter his ears. Jongin has to wonder what it might be like to fuck someone like that -- not Ten, but someone like Ten, someone who'll jangle at every thrust. "Just stop caring."

Jongin blinks, tugs at the collar of his designer t-shirt, the one Taemin had given him as a gift a couple birthdays back. "Caring about..."

"Anything, really. Look at me, Jongin," and Ten smiles, so sharp he must be an animal in a human's skin, the blood in veins beneath his skin catching, pulsing visibly in the red light. "Do I look like I give a single fuck what you care about me? Or what anyone in here cares about me?"

Jongin must admit, he can't imagine Ten caring about much, not when the dramatic dip of his collarbone catches in the flash of the streetlight outside the bar every time a new patron enters, and he's dressed like it isn't practically freezing out there, and he looks at Jongin like he matters.

No one has ever treated Jongin like he matters. Not even his best friend. Not because no one thinks so; Jongin's self-esteem isn't the best, but neither is his ego, which would fuel him in times of languishing were he anyone else. No, he knows Taemin loves him, he just knows that Taemin isn't here, and that he needs to touch in order to be felt, and that that's a detail about Jongin for which no one's ever cared but himself.

Still, it must be serendipitous, the way Ten reaches into the brief space between the pair of them and touches the inside of Jongin's wrist, traces his veins, feels his pulse like it's something precious. "I don't care."

"I know," says Jongin, though he isn't sure about his level of conviction. He bites the inside of his cheek, and he tastes blood. "What do you do, then, to stop caring?"

Ten shrugs. "I could show you. It's easier than telling, and you're kinda sloshed. But you have to promise to stay with me the rest of the night."

Jongin doesn't have to think about this, only looks at the slow blink of Ten's eyes, and never once questions why he suddenly thinks of cats when he's got his own dog kids at home.

"Yeah," he says after a long pause, not sure what affect he's trying to wear, or for whom. "Yeah, I'll stay."

///

Last call finally comes. They chase it with beers, and Jongin's stomach sloshes like the snowfall a day old that's started to puddle in the gutters. He finds a crumpled packet of cigarettes in the pocket of his jacket, and he doesn't smoke, not really, only when the existential dread gets thick and syrupy. Not that it matters. Ten doesn't seem to think two ways about it. That's probably for the best. Jongin lights up, and the smoke he breathes out through his nose mingles with his breath, condensing in the air.

"I want you to do something for me, Jongin." Ten's voice is still soft, but the din of traffic has died down, and most of the other bar patrons that'd watched with rapt attention when Ten had turned on some slinky old song, guitars and castanets and drums played by hands instead of sticks. He's got a jacket he definitely didn't come in with, from where Jongin doesn't know. It's gold, a beautiful contrast to the silver sliver of starshine that Ten seems to carry with him wherever he goes. Slowly he comes to realise it'd been lifted from a particularly stuck-up woman who'd been giving side eyes all night.

"What's that?" he asks, surprisingly lucid despite the fact that he's sure he couldn't pass a Breathalyzer right now even if he tried.

Ten squares his jaw like it's important, and Jongin could get used to this, being treated like he matters. Funny how something so simple could start the process of filling his own personal void. "I want you to hit me in the face, as hard as you can."

Jongin blinks, drops his cigarette to the asphalt beneath their feet, watches as Ten shrugs out of that coat, leaves it hanging over a nearby bench meant for waiting on buses. "What?" he asks, though his tongue implores him not to, and his heart hammers hard, fists beating against a ribcage he isn't even sure he still has. Every part of him feels incorporeal. His hands are starting to go numb. He misses the gloves he left at home with great intention just a half-night ago.

"I said, I want you to hit me in the face as hard as you can." Ten glimmers under the street lamps, a mirage the likes of which Jongin could have never imagined on his own.

The street before them is empty; the last car had passed by some time ago, and Jongin can't even find its taillights blinking red in the distance. Their fellows had left them some time ago. Jongin is actually considering punching Ten, because the other option would be to take him home, send him away in a cab once the cold light of morning poured over them. He doesn't like either choice. He has to make one.

He stutters a few times, fist clenching at his side, and then Ten catches him right in the jaw, knocking him clean on his ass.

He grinds his teeth through the shock of being punched, the pain not more to bear than the cold, and Ten stares down at him, so tall and imposing in this light, from this angle. Jongin presses ginger fingertips to where Ten'd caught him, and the mark sure to be forming on his skin is warm beneath his frigid touch. "What," he intones, gazing up into Ten's eyes in something that might still be shock, "the fuck."

But then Ten is hauling him up by the lapels of his stupid puffy coat, bringing him to his feet, no mean feat given the differences in their height. Ten is a lot stronger than he lets on. "I didn't think a skinny twink could punch," Jongin grits out, though it ends more of a laugh than the insult he means it. He's out of here.

Except...he can't seem to look away from Ten's shadow. He turns on his heel, turns back, uncertainty gripping him.

Glancing around, he sees there is no one else between them, no other's shadow darkening this door into which Jongin's been invited.

He rears back and punches Ten right in his smug, smirking mouth, taking deep satisfaction in the crunch, in the change in expression, in the shocked moan that drips from Ten's lip like blood from a busted lip.

It goes on like a dance from there, their chests heaving, enormous plumes of steam spilling from their open, roaring mouths. Jongin swears that Ten just keeps smiling, even as there's something ferocious, nearly feral in his eyes, sharper with every swing. They trade blows in silence save the occasional cry of pain.

By the end of it, Jongin's half-hard, and his heart is soaring. He's never been this free before, never gone this long without thinking about things like _responsibility_ and _burden_ since he'd started working. All that occupies him is the image of Ten, before him, breathless and radiant as he bleeds from a cut Jongin's split into his incredible cheekbone.

When, at last, they can take no more and their bodies threaten to collapse beneath them, they have a seat on the bench where Ten had left someone else's jacket. Jongin lets his bones settle back into place, waits until they stop rattling before he dares move, ask anything, formulate any complicated thoughts. Ten quietly demands, "Let's have one of your cigarettes."

Jongin doesn't have to be told twice, lights up, the warmth afforded him by the brief act of lighting up seeming to heal him, though he can still feel blood gone cold dripping down the column of his throat. "Is that what you do?" he asks, when there's nothing but silence between them, the both of them having caught their breath. "Just have people punch you in the face?"

Ten snorts. "I do whatever I want, because I don't care. And sometime, in the future, you're going to be able to do what you want, because you won't care, either."

"Yeah?" Jongin has a thought, a horrible one at that, one that makes his hands shake harder than the temperature ever could. He offers the cigarette to Ten, but only for holding, fingers snaking around his wrist and keeping it from his mouth. Then, with all the daring left in Jongin's frame, he reaches into that stolen golden jacket, and takes Ten by the collar, and pulls him close.

There's a moment of hesitation, a place held in case Ten decides to back out, but he only smiles, bloody lip cracking open to a fresh stream as he closes the gap between them. The fingers holding Jongin's cigarette come up to cup his broken face, and he presses into the bruise forming at his jaw, drawing a stuttered gasp from between Jongin's lips. He sings at the taste of Ten's tongue upon his own, dulled by booze and smoke and blood. But there's something so acrid, so sharp about him that it's hard not to want more.

They stay like this, kissing, fighting, dancing, trading blows. Ten's tongue trips along each and every ridge in the roof of Jongin's mouth, and he drops the cigarette in time. Jongin can almost see it in his mind's eye, the glow of the cherry illuminating a tiny diameter at their feet while they kiss until there's no room left for anything else.

Ten reaches between Jongin's legs, trails fingertips like a fucking tease along his inseam. "Is this okay, baby boy?" he asks, and Jongin's never once been called anything like that by anyone who looks at him the way Ten does. It makes everything better, worse, better, and he ruts into Ten's palm, begging silently for more.

Of course, it's not an obligation. They're drunk on blood loss and bruised knuckles but Jongin feels fucking amazing, especially when Ten's wrist curves just like _that_ and it's almost something intimate, except for the fact that someone might drive by at any moment. "Are you trying to get us arrested?" Jongin rasps out, barely a question, trapped between little whimpers Ten pulls out of him with alternating touches.

Ten just smirks, presses his bloody mouth to the side of Jongin's neck, bites hard into the spot where his pulse races beneath his skin. "Do you care?" he asks, and it's _such_ a fucking taunt Jongin nearly finishes right then and there.

In the end, though, he comes with Ten's name on his lips, humping shamelessly into Ten's palm, with Ten's mouth on his, stealing the breath from him, right there for God and everyone to see. His boxers end up plastered to his skin, and he's loathe to see what he looks like beneath layers of fabric. The thought of going home a mess terrifies him, but then it doesn't, and for the first time in a long time, Jongin doesn't want to die.

"Where do you live?"

Ten laughs, head tipped back, flexing his fingers, allowing Jongin a look at the skilled hands that had broken him down only to bring him to the best orgasm he's had in years. "Not that far. You worried about going home, sweetheart?" And fuck, he's so _smug_, but if there's anything Jongin has learned tonight, it's that Ten deserves to be smug, has worked hard for it, has probably taken a few surprise punches in his life to be this fucking incredible creation Jongin sees him as.

For the record, Jongin doesn't care -- doesn't care if Ten knows how he sees him, doesn't care if he gets home in time for someone to take care of the kids, doesn't care if he shows up for work on Monday. "You asked me why I noticed you," he says between sips of smoke, his third of the night. "Why did you notice me?"

"Oh, Jongin," singsongs Ten as he digs his phone out of his back pocket, "how could I not notice you?"

And Jongin, full for the very first time, is happy.

When the cab comes, they slip into the backseat, the stifling artificial heat just enough to warm their hands by. "You're coming over, aren't you?" Ten asks, a touch of concern playing at the corners of his smile.

Jongin, for the record, shrugs as their cab speeds down the empty streets. "If you want me to. If you care."

Ten laughs, and his smile catches, glimmering in the passing streetlamps, and Jongin thinks maybe, _maybe_ it's okay to care, just this once.

**Author's Note:**

> as usual please come bother me on [twitter](http://twitter.com) or [cc](http://curiouscat.me/chahakyeon) for whatever reasons you like ♥


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